


The Strategist and the Redhead; Part 7

by ignis_scientia_estrogen_brigade



Series: The Strategist and the Redhead [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 19:57:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11905101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignis_scientia_estrogen_brigade/pseuds/ignis_scientia_estrogen_brigade
Summary: This series of fics features an OC that originated from a brief headcanon I wrote in the early days of The Ignis Scientia Estrogen Brigade; they were written out of chronological order, so I apologize for any inconsistencies you might happen to come across. Part 7 takes place the night before the official prologue chapter Parting Ways.





	The Strategist and the Redhead; Part 7

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place before the start of in-game events. And no, the redhead doesn't have a name. Sorry. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Have you seen a doctor recently?” 

She’s sitting on his living room couch nursing a cup of herbal tea when she hears his voice call out from inside the bathroom; Ebony would only exacerbate her upset stomach, the strategist had told her, so the redhead wrinkles her nose before attempting to choke down another sip of his bitter concoction.

“And when, pray tell, would I have had the time to do that?” she asks tartly, only barely managing to swallow the unpleasant tonic. “Some of us have had to work twelve-hour shifts this week, rather than enjoy the luxury of packing for a leisurely vacation.” 

“The Citadel makes concessions for unexpected illnesses. You could’ve requested a sick day.”

“The peace talks aren’t going to organize themselves. I have explicit orders from The Immortal himself not to take any sudden leave of absences unless absolutely necessary.”

“Successful diplomacy between nations begins with the health of their constituents. You wouldn’t want to start a war because you accidentally vomited all over a foreign ambassador.”

She rolls her eyes when she sees his lanky figure returning from his expedition to the medicine cabinet, remedy vial in hand. “I’m sure it’s just a mild case of the flu. I’ll be back on my feet in no time.”

“It could be the flu, or it could be something else entirely. Best to know for certain what precisely it is you’re dealing with.” He stops beside her and peers down at the vial’s label through his spectacles. “Here, this ought to help.”

Her features crumple into a scowl as he presses the small bottle into her hand. “Are you generally this overbearing? No wonder the prince always has a sour look on his face whenever you’re around him.”

He levels her with a withering stare and nods at the vial; when she doesn’t immediately activate the curative, he wraps his fingers around her grip and crushes it for her. “Better?”

The medicinal properties in the remedy quickly work their way into her bloodstream, but she resists the urge to acknowledge the tension easing in her abdomen, lest she give him the satisfaction of being right. “Marginally.”

“I should’ve known something was amiss as early as yesterday,” he says, lowering himself next to her on the sofa. “I gave you no less than three opportunities to parry my lance on the sparring mat, and you fell for every one of my feigns.”

Her scowl deepens as he settles into the cushions. “I didn’t fall for anything. I was merely a little distracted, is all.”

She  _had_  been uncommonly preoccupied as of late; the redhead had always taken pride in her ability to disregard matters that did not explicitly concern her, but the gravity surrounding the upcoming peace accord had weighed heavily on everyone’s collective mind, and she’d found herself afflicted with heartburn and indigestion more days out of the week than not. Perhaps running repetitive military drills for hours on end—coupled with the distasteful notion of fraternizing with Niflheim dignitaries—had simply taken its toll on her immune system long enough for her to pick up an inconveniently-timed bug.

The strategist crosses one knee over the other, the concern in his stiff body language obvious. “Even if that were the case, had I known you were feeling under the weather tonight, I would’ve insisted you stay home.”

“And miss my chance to see you off on your testosterone-fueled road trip? I think not.” Her scowl is replaced by a cheeky grin. “What if you were struck down by an Astral before you returned to Insomnia? I’d never forgive myself for not telling you how I really feel.”

A wayward eyebrow appears over the top of his spectacles. “Which is?”

She lifts her teacup to her lips again and sips at it demurely. “I think that shirt you packed is hideous. You know—the one with the Coeurl print.”

“My purple shirt? You think it’s  _hideous?_ ”

“I always have.”

His jaw slackens in bewilderment. “I love that shirt.”

She smiles at his feigned outrage, but in truth, there was something rather peculiar about being in the strategist’s presence like this; with intimacy likely out of the question—attempting to copulate between unpredictable bouts of nausea seemed like an exercise in poor judgment—and his constant fretting over every one of her aches and pains, their current rapport felt almost…  _domestic._

And while she might’ve allowed herself to relish in the experience of being doted on by him, or at the very least contemplate the significance behind this unusual display of attentiveness, the mild curative he had administered not moments before is already losing its effect. “Would you mind terribly fetching me another cup of tea?” she asks, pressing a hand to her abdomen as a second wave of queasiness washes over her. “I’m going to see if I can dig up something stronger out of your medicine cabinet.”

He’s already out of the sofa and gripping her gently by the elbow when she moves to gather herself to her feet. “I believe there’s a few hi-potions on the top shelf, if the remedy wasn’t sufficient enough to settle your stomach.”

She waves him off with an irritable hand and slinks toward the bathroom, but a third, more intense wave hits her senses like an angry Spiracorn before she can even make it a dozen paces. She steadies herself on a nearby chair and fights the urge to wretch all over his hardwood floors; he’s on her in an instant, supporting her waist with two firm hands as her legs begin to buckle beneath her.

“Easy does it,” he says softly, locking an elbow behind her knees and hoisting her up with a gracefulness that belied a remarkable amount of athleticism. “Perhaps it might be best if you waited in the bedroom and left the potion wrangling to me.”

“Really, Ignis—I can walk on my own.” She makes a halfhearted attempt at wiggling out of his arms, but her flailing serves only to encourage the strategist to reinforce his grip over her. “I’ll have you know this is utterly humiliating.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of, Darling. You wouldn’t be the first nauseated houseguest I’ve had to carry out of my living room—remind me to tell you about the time Prompto devoured one too many slices of my fluffy chiffon cake in a single hour.”

His anecdote does little to improve her spirits, but her waning stamina scarcely stands a chance against his superior strength, so she heaves a disgruntled sigh and resigns to leaning her cheek against his shoulder. He navigates a path across the apartment to an open door on the other side, easing her carefully through the threshold before setting her down gently on the edge of the bed; he then disappears into the attached bathroom, only to return a short while later with yet another curative in tow.

She’s sitting upright and averting his gaze when he seats himself next to her. “I’d generally administer an elixir only when severe physical trauma is involved,” he says, offering the vial in her direction, “but with emesis as acute as yours, it may be just the thing needed to take the edge off.”

She doesn’t bother asking him to clarify his fancy medical terminology for a lowly commoner like herself, nor does she protest his incessant hovering like before; she simply crushes the capsule as quickly as her trembling fingers will allow for, her face relaxing visibly as the healing properties in the restorative take immediate effect.

“You should’ve given me an elixir from the start,” she says, slumping her shoulders forward as the muscles in her lower abdomen mercifully begin to unclench, “unless you enjoy the prospect of mopping your floors at midnight.”

“One has to be extremely cautious when dealing with high level curatives. Their effects can be rather potent to the unsuspecting.” He plucks a hand from her lap and presses two fingers to her wrist, turning his gaze toward the analog clock resting on the nightstand. “I still think you should arrange a doctor’s appointment at your earliest convenience.”

She realizes as he takes her pulse that she is witnessing yet another facet of the strategist; he may have been hailed as the Citadel’s greatest tactical mind, but he had another nickname— _The Grand Chamberlain_. “Maybe coming over tonight was a bad idea, after all,” she concedes. “I’m sure holding my hair back is only appealing when I’m kneeling in front of your trousers, rather than the toilet.”

His gaze drifts from the second hand on the clock to meet her own. “That’s not true.”

A wry smirk tugs on the corner of her lips. “Why else do you keep me around?”

She is unable to quite decipher the odd expression that crosses his features just then; he’d never gone out of his way to make her feel like she was unworthy of his respect, but there was admittedly only one motivating factor behind their perpetual agreement, and it certainly didn’t stem from a source of  _devotion._

So why he looks like she had just hurt his feelings with a remark she’d made in jest—truthfulness notwithstanding—gives her pause. “Any other unusual symptoms?” he asks, evidently content with his observations and returning her wrist to her lap. “Fever, perhaps?”

The sudden indifference in his tone makes her heart wince slightly. “No.”

“Rashes? Cotton mouth? Fainting spells?”

“Just a little fatigue.”

“Any changes in your menstrual cycle?”

Her eyes narrow in mild irritation. “What are you, my gynecologist?”

“I’m simply trying to rule out any commonly occurring ailments by process of elimination.”

She purses her lips for a moment before shaking her head. “I’m not sure. I’d have to look at my calendar.”

The way he stares at her a few seconds longer than would normally be considered polite leaves her feeling strangely vulnerable. “Any soreness?”

“Some.”

“Where?”

“Oh, you know—here and there.”

“Could you be more specific?”

His unyielding interrogation is beginning to wear down on her patience, and she grits her teeth in frustration. “If you absolutely must know, my breasts have been rather tender as of late.”

“Well then, let’s have a look.”

A laugh escapes her before she can stop it from bubbling out of her throat. “I beg your pardon?”

He’s already fluffing a pillow and gesturing for her to remove her blouse. “Massage therapy has been shown to release endorphins into the bloodstream, thereby improving the body’s sense of wellbeing.”

He isn’t wrong, exactly—whatever chemical it was that flooded her mind whenever he traced his hands lightly over her nipples had never failed to put a skip in her step in the past. But her fingers hesitate when she moves to tackle the top closure of her shirt, and it’s only when she notes his expression of clinical seriousness that she swallows her reticence and unbuttons the rest of them. “I’m not sure if this is entirely necessary, but I suppose I’ll try anything at this point.”

He rises from the bed and disappears into the attached bath once again, and she can hear the sound of cabinet doors opening and bottles clinking as she discards her blouse on the floor. “Go ahead and lie down,” he calls out. “Feel free to take your pants off, if you’ll be more comfortable.”

Had she known the evening would end with her winding up naked in his bed regardless, the redhead might’ve politely excused herself from his apartment the moment he’d inquired about the state of her fertility. But the waistband of her trousers is admittedly putting an uncomfortable amount of pressure on her bloated abdomen, so she peels out of her pants before slipping under the sheets of his bed.

He’s carrying a bottle of scented oil and pouring a small dollop into his palms when he returns to her side. “Your brassier as well, if you would.”

When the tart expression souring her features elicits nothing more than a blank stare from him, she reaches around her back and releases the clasp of the constricting undergarment; the strategist scarcely even blinks at the sight of her exposed torso, rubbing the oil in his hands together with all the erotic sensuality of an elderly urologist. She then lowers herself gingerly into a reclining position and stretches out beneath the sheets, relaxing into the pillow he had fluffed earlier as he runs a warm hand across her sternum.

But she flinches in mild discomfort when his fingers graze the tops of her breasts. “Too much?” he asks.

She resorts to pressing her eyes shut and shakes her head. “It’s fine.”

His hands maneuver away from the sore spot he had just touched, but he doesn’t move to adjust the pressure bearing down on her; if anything, his caresses strengthen when he glides his oiled palms across her collarbones and down the sides of her chest. He works his fingers into the muscles between her ribs, pushing and pulling at the tight knots that had taken up residence there with his thumbs, then sweeps them across her torso before stopping to cup her breasts softly with gentle hands.

A moan leaves her lungs her when his fingers find her nipples, a whispered cry of pain mingled with relief. The tenderness in her chest had grown increasingly persistent over the last several days, but it was no match against the circular motions he was administering with pinpoint accuracy; as the last of her soreness melts away, the redhead surmises only a man as straight-laced as Ignis Scientia could fondle a woman’s breasts without any lecherous intentions whatsoever.

She sees his brow furrowed in concentration when she opens her eyes again; it was just like the strategist to apply himself with as much dedication as he committed to any other task, and it’s only when she runs her hand up his forearm that his focus breaks long enough for him to meet her gaze. “That feels nice,” she murmurs.

“Perhaps it’s best if we stop there,” he says quietly. “I wouldn’t want to further aggravate any inflamed tissue.”

His hands slow to a halt, but hers continues to wander up his arm until it reaches the skull pendant peeking out of his shirt. “Wearing your necklace after all, I see.”

He glances down at the fingers she is presently entwining around the delicate chain. “Indeed.”

In contrast to the rest of his wardrobe, it was actually a rather tacky accessory; she’d given it to him last night—before he had brewed her one final cup of Ebony on her way out the door, but after she’d cleaned his genetic material from out of her hair—and the dubious expression on his face when he’d opened the box it came in made her think he might pawn it off online for a few measly Crown City credits as soon as she left his apartment.

But she’d wanted to give him  _something_  to remember her by—if his prediction of being trapped on the island archipelago of Altissia against his will for months on end ultimately came to fruition—even if he didn’t appreciate the joke of ‘designer clothes before death’ it represented. “I thought you made it fairly obvious pewter clashed with your fashion sensibilities.”

“Yes. Well. I can’t exactly formulate an objective opinion about it if I don’t try wearing it around a little.”

“Is the chain too short? I could probably find you a longer one before you leave.”

“Maybe a tad. Although I must say, the bright shade of purple my face turned when I went to adjust the clasp complimented my Coeurl-print shirt quite nicely.”

She knocks him playfully in the shoulder, then reaches for the brassier she had abandoned along with her blouse. “If you can’t take my generosity seriously, then I suppose there’s no reason for me to linger here any longer.”

His teasing expression turns earnest, and he seizes her wrist before she can push herself upright on the bed. “Stay a while. Get some rest.”

Her eyebrows knits together in confusion. “What about the guards?”

“Don’t worry about the guards. I’ll find a way to sneak you past them in the morning.”

The redhead had admittedly bent the rules of their arrangement on more than one occasion, but this was the first time in memory Ignis had ever explicitly allowed her the freedom to remain at his apartment past their mutually agreed-upon hours. “Are you feeling all right?” she asks. “Perhaps a bit of my illness has rubbed off on you.”

His gaze is directed at the wrist held in his grasp; after a moment, he releases it and slides his hand across her palm. “I feel fine. It’s just—it’s going to be a rather long time before I see you again.”

The slight hitch his voice pierces her heart like an arrow, and she closes her fingers around his own. “You’ll be back before you know it. You said as much yourself.”

“While I’d like to believe in my own assessment, plans have an annoying way of falling through sometimes.”

She isn’t sure how much longer the elixir’s effects will soothe her temperamental stomach, but the look of melancholy suddenly befalling his features overrides any fear she might’ve had about dry heaving into his sheets, and she is unable to resist the impulse to reach absentmindedly for his face. “Will you lay with me?”

His gaze shifts to her emerald orbs as her fingers trace the outline of his jaw. “I’m not sure if that’s in your best interest right now.”

“Maybe not. Or maybe it’ll promote my body’s sense of wellbeing, as you so eloquently implied.”

“A light massage is one thing. Intimacy may raise your heart rate to unsafe levels.”

“I’ve taken greater risks.”

They’re the same words he’d used to enrapture her the very first night they spend together, what felt like an eternity ago; a inkling of recognition flickers behind his spectacled eyes, and he presses his lips together into a thin line as the wheels of deliberation turn in his mind. After a moment, he nods wordlessly, shifting his weight against the edge of the bed as his hands drift to his chest.

She studies his movements, absorbing every minute detail; the long fingers that tackle the buttons of his dress shirt with quick dexterity, his tawny hair that floats like seaweed being carried along a tranquil ocean tide, the way he plucks his glasses off the bridge of his nose and sets them carefully down on the nightstand. When he moves to extinguish the lamp perched beside the bed, she stays his hand. “Leave it on. I like seeing your face.”

He hesitates, then quietly shrugs out of his shirt. She shimmies out of her remaining smallclothes as he unbuckles his trousers, sliding over on the bed to make room for him once he’s removed the last of his wardrobe. It’s not his stark nakedness that makes her heart suddenly pound inside her chest, nor is it the fingers he glides up her leg beneath the sheets, but the way he looks at her; his bare face is an unreadable mask, the resignation in his voice from earlier at odds with the expression of unusual intensity presently veiling his features.

When he’s made himself comfortable beside her, and she can feel the beginnings of his arousal pressing up against her thigh, he brushes a lock of red hair away from her cheek and touches his lips to hers. His caress is gentle, the breath exhaling slowly from his nostrils warm on her skin, and she reaches up to capture his face in her small hands. His own hand is traveling down her neck, grazing past her collarbone, circling over the curves of her breasts, before finally coming to a stop at her belly.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he whispers. “We can fall asleep together, if you’d rather.”

For a moment, the redhead contemplates his offer; she’s never allowed herself to pretend there was anything more to their arrangement that what it ultimately was, and the notion of abandoning all reality—if only for an instant—in favor of drifting peacefully to sleep in his arms is more than a little intriguing.

But the moment passes, the fantasy of a life just beyond her grasp evaporating with the heat rising from her skin, and she resigns herself to tracing her fingers lightly over his cheeks. “I want this. I want you.”

His face darkens and he returns his lips return to hers once more, but it’s not a chaste kiss like it was before, and she can almost taste the desire flooding through him when she feels his tongue slither between her teeth. The hand he has resting on her belly moves southward, and she opens her mouth against his own when he buries his fingers in her heat; the wetness he finds there seems only to ignite his ardor, the erection pressed firmly against her thigh growing more and more rigid with each passing second, and she is unable to entirely stifle a moan as he probes her walls with increasing intensity.

His lips then drift to her neck, and she runs her fingers through his feathery hair as he nibbles softly at her collarbone. But his mouth doesn’t linger for very long, because there was too much territory he had evidently hoped to cover in a single night, and he’s behaving as if this is the first time he’s ever sampled the bounties of what her body had to offer. He grazes his lips over her shoulders, her breasts, her abdomen, trailing light kisses along her arms and the insides of her wrists, dragging his teeth across her hips and upper thighs, before finally withdrawing his fingers from her warmth and settling his head in between her legs.

The redhead would’ve felt guilty for not reciprocating the attention he was lavishing on her, but it becomes rather difficult to return the favor when he locks his hands around hers and pins her wrists to the bed. All she can do is flinch helplessly beneath him as he nuzzles the tip of his nose against her pulsing nub, and her writhing intensifies when she feels his rough tongue glide across her flesh. A sharp hiss escapes her lungs and she draws her knees up around his shoulders, ensnaring his head firmly between her thighs; his grip over her wrists tightens and he drinks in the flavor of her sex, raking his teeth over her sensitive hood as she arches herself hard against his mouth.

It might’ve been worth it to turn out the lights just to save on electricity—her eyelids are pressed tightly shut and the only thing she can see anyway are white stars dancing across her mind’s eye—although if the energy flowing through her veins could be captured in a bottle, a talented mage could craft a limitless number of Electon spells and still have enough left over to power all of Insomnia. He’s channeling his focus entirely on her nub now, circling his teeth around the frenzied nerve endings and teasing her hood with a delightful tongue. She claws desperately at the strong hands that are trapping her wrists to the bed to little avail; his grip is relentless, the agonizingly slow caresses directed against her sex unyielding.

“Darling,” she pants, her knees clenching ever tighter around his neck, “please—this isn’t how I wanted this to end.”

For a moment, it appears as if the strategist’s ears are not working properly; he continues his sinful torture, pushing her closer over the edge with each passing stroke of his tongue. The redhead has her knees wrapped so tightly around his neck now it’s a wonder he can even breathe properly, and it’s only when the inferno raging in her lower abdomen reaches nearly its tipping point that he eases the pressure off her nub and plants a light kiss against the inside of her thigh.

He then releases her wrists and untangles the legs that are wrapped around his neck like deadly Coeurl whiskers, and the redhead breathes a small sigh of relief when the roaring in her belly mercifully subsides. Her eyes open tentatively and she watches as he gathers himself to his knees, his palm gliding across the smooth skin of her abdomen as he positions himself above her; she moves to touch his face, trailing gentle fingers along his jaw and lower lip, and he reaches up to capture her hand with his own.

But she can see the hint of sorrow disturbing his features even in the dim light of the bedroom, and she tilts her head in concern. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispers.

He turns his face and presses his mouth to her fingertips. “It’s nothing.”

“I’m not made of glass. You can do as you please.”

“You may be more fragile than you think.”

“It’s just the flu, Ignis. You have enough to worry about without overanalyzing the color of my snot.”

He snorts softly, but she is unable to quite shake the bizarre feeling of melancholy she can sense emanating from him. Instead of responding to her quip, however, he simply leans down and touches his lips to her own, the weight of his body settling in on hers like a comfortable blanket; he then reaches down between their legs, and soon she can feel the head of his shaft pressing hard against her folds.

Her hands slip around his waist when he pushes himself slowly inside of her, but she doesn’t cry out like she usually does; her throat tightens abruptly almost to the point of asphyxiation, her fingernails digging into the thickest part of his buttocks, and her vision blurs as tears begin to pool in her eyes. The warmth in her belly is nothing compared to the searing heat of the man touched by fire, and she has to force an exhale through flared nostrils just to accommodate the full length of himself scorching every fiber of her being.

It’s a small mercy that he takes a moment to settle his hips against her pelvis; her breath returns to her lungs when he presses a hand to her forehead, nuzzling his nose in her hair and nibbling at her earlobe. She isn’t sure if this brief interlude is for her benefit or his own, but she notices a slight trembling in the biceps he has braced on either side of her head, as well as the flexing of his jaw when she feels his shaft pulse faintly inside of her.

She tilts her chin up in search of his mouth, and it’s only when their lips meet again that he quells the vibration afflicting his arms and begins to move. His cadence is unhurried, his hips almost lazy in their wanton efforts, and he deepens their kiss with each agonizingly slow thrust. Her fingers relax around his buttocks and glide up the taut muscles of his back, and she arches herself against the sword he has sheathed fully inside of her; as their bodies fall into a familiar rhythm, the redhead can almost envision the image of his shaft grinding hard against her nub.

There is a method to his movements, she knows, because the strategist had a method for practically everything; in this instance, they had both discovered quite serendipitously that the slenderness of his waist met the angle of her hips in such a way as to fit together like the interlocking pieces of a puzzle. Penetrate her sex just so, and the pressure on her hood intensified; withdraw slightly, and the tension eased. Slow motions gave way to a steady momentum—rather like pushing a large boulder up a steep incline—and it takes Ignis all of one minute of concentrated effort for her to feel the beginnings of her climax hovering on the periphery of her mind.

So she stays his motions by wrapping her thighs around his waist, because if it were to be months before they would be able to meet like this again, she’d damned if she didn’t at the very least  _try_  to draw this evening out as long as she could. The forged iron inside of her is proving to be somewhat of a challenge to her willpower, however, since her screaming nub refuses be ignored; as a last resort, she moves her hands from his back to clutch desperately at his face.

“Wait,” she breathes. “Just—I need a moment.”

His cheeks are dotted with a thin layer of perspiration, the product of his exertion evidently taking its toll on his own discipline. He nods and presses his lips to hers once more, exploring her mouth with tentative inquisitiveness; she yields to his kiss and rakes her hands through his hair, chasing the lingering taste of herself on his tongue with the fervor of an addict in dire need of a fix. His manhood buried deep within her walls like a pike impaling a target is pulsing harder now, his hips shuddering against the shackles of his restraint, and he grips at the sheets beneath her as her wetness trickles down around both their thighs.

But even in the stillness of their embrace, her aching nub will not be denied its singular desire for release, and when his hips resume their slow drives into her heat, she feels the threads of her resolve slipping through her fingers one by one. The redhead isn’t the only living entity losing control over herself, however; for a man seemingly defined by his enduring stoicism, the strategist is uncharacteristically expressive, the quiet grunts that pass through his lips as he draws ever nearer to the edge ringing audibly in her ears.

It’s inevitable what will happen if they keep this pace up, but the she no longer cares about prolonging their ecstasy; she no longer cares about anything, for that matter, other than the man holding her tightly in his arms, the one who had taken her under his wing and schooled her in the art of warfare, who had both seduced her at her haughtiest and comforted her at her most vulnerable, the man who—despite the explicit terms of their agreement—she cherished beyond all measure of reason. He could at times be tender and witty and utterly infuriating all at once, and although the strategist and the redhead had made love more times that she could count, he somehow felt closer to her now than he had ever felt before.

She can sense the culmination of his ardor drawing precariously close to its terminus; the hard tissues of his shaft are engorged nearly to their saturation point, his back slick with perspiration, his breath ragged in his lungs. The pressure in her own abdomen feels likely to burst at any given moment, the nerve endings in her nub firing electrical impulses from one end of her body to the other as if she were touched by the Fulgurian himself. She makes one last attempt at extending their rapture by covering his mouth with her own; what she was hoping to accomplish with this futile distraction, she isn’t sure, but it’s too late now, because the dam bracing the tide of her resolve is already crumbling, and it was only a matter of milliseconds before one of their bodies would betray them.

The strategist breaks first. “Darling,” he groans, his hips trembling against her sex, “I—I can’t—”

“I can’t either,” she gasps. “Don’t you dare stop.”

She tightens her legs around his waist and urges him onward, and the redhead has but a heartbeat to glimpse the expression of surrender enshrouding his features before he lowers his forehead to hers and grudgingly heeds her command. His eyes are closed, his biceps flexing under the weight of his exertion as he pushes them both past the brink, and her walls clench tightly around him when the first crest of her orgasm crashes over her like a torrential wave. She lifts her head off the pillow in an effort to draw oxygen into her lungs, but the sensation of drowning only intensifies when she feels him thrusting furiously through his final throes and filling her belly with his seed.

A second wave is followed by a third, then a fourth, then a fifth; by the sixth wave, her body is shivering like a newborn Anak calf, the vice hold she has over his waist weakening as she loses her grip on reality. His thrusts are growing less erratic now, his strength fleeing his body like an exodus, and it’s only when she starts to feel his fluid trickling down the back of her thighs and onto the sheets that his movements finally cease altogether.

For a long moment, the redhead is unable to discern where precisely the strategist’s body ends and hers begins; their hearts beat as one in the stillness of the bedroom, their lungs expanding and contracting quietly against the others’ chests. His head is still pressed to her forehead, his eyelids sealed firmly shut, his soft exhales warm against her damp cheeks, and as she traces a hand across the planes of his chiseled face, she wonders briefly if there might not be a way to stay here with Ignis forever and never move again.

But then he does move, pushing himself upright on shaky elbows and slowly withdrawing from her. She rolls onto her side and drags the comforter up around her breasts, bracing herself against the chill of the evening wind she knows is forthcoming; rather than immediately bolting from the bed to open a window like he usually does, however, the strategist simply sidles up alongside her beneath the blanket and circles his arms around her smaller form.

She can’t help but frown at his peculiar show of tenderness; once the deed was done, he generally resumed a more aloof air of indifference, at least until his libido had recharged enough for another round of intimacy. Cuddling and pillow talk had never been one of the expectations of their arrangement—much like pet names and public displays of affection—and the redhead begins to seriously consider whether her illness really  _had_  rubbed off on him, after all.

“Are you all right?” she asks, turning her head over her shoulder toward him. “You’re not often this—er,  _attentive._ ”

His hand traces the outline of her thigh before stopping at her belly, and she can feel the cold metal of his necklace pressing up against her spine. “Apologies. Perhaps I haven’t been as considerate of your needs in the past as I should have.”

“I wouldn’t say that. And besides—I like to think I’m not a particularly needy person.”

“It’s a funny thing, neediness,” he whispers. “Sometimes you never know how much you really needed something until it’s too late, and you’re already running off on some grand adventure.”

His hold over her belly tightens as an odd silence befalls them; it was hard to tell whether the familiar twinge in her lower abdomen was a direct response to the distress in his voice, or merely the effects of the medicinal he had administered earlier losing its strength. “Speaking of running off,” she says carefully, “I really ought to be going soon. That elixir isn’t going to settle my stomach forever, and I’d rather not throw up in the bushes on my walk home.”

“I told you, I’ll deal with the guards. Stay the night.”

Her bewilderment finally gets the better of her, and she rolls over to face him. “Don’t you have to help the prince clean out his apartment first thing in the morning? You’re not going to want to field his burning questions if he spots me sneaking out of your flat like a thief.”

“I’ll… figure something out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certainly. But do me a favor, won’t you? Schedule an appointment with a physician as soon as possible, I beg of you.”

The odd look of remorse on his bare face gives her pause, and she narrows her eyes. “Is there something you’re not telling me, Ignis?”

He loosens his grip over her belly and traces his fingers lightly over the soft skin there. “There’s always something I’m not telling you. Just like yourself.”

She knows what he’s referring to; it’s that word, just one little word, the word that wholly defined the meaning of their relationship even though they’d never uttered it aloud in one another’s presence before. But they’d expressed it in other ways—be it in the shower, or on the breakfast table, or in the front seat of the Regalia—and it had never occurred to the redhead to verbalize what he truly meant to her until now.

But maybe it was worth mentioning after all, addressing the sentiments left unspoken on the eve of his departure. “Would you like to talk about things? Maybe there’s something I could say that would put your mind at ease.”

His fingers continue circling her navel, his forehead furrowed in deep thought. “There’ll be time enough later, Astrals willing,” he says finally, pressing his lips gently to her cheek. “For now, get some rest.”


End file.
